


Tara

by butwordsarewind (sungabraverday)



Series: Cities Headcanons [6]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Paris Burning (thecitysmith)
Genre: Gen, Personification of Cities
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-03
Updated: 2013-07-03
Packaged: 2017-12-17 13:07:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/867878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sungabraverday/pseuds/butwordsarewind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tara was once glorious; now she is forgotten. She is angry.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tara

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Paris Burning](https://archiveofourown.org/works/825130) by [thecitysmith](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thecitysmith/pseuds/thecitysmith). 



Once Temair had been the greatest city in Ireland. You could see more from her peak than any other point in the country, great wide vistas of growing green fields and towering forests. She was the Capital and she held all the power.

Temair was a goddess, for all the old cities of Europe took on that role at some point. She was mistress of the land and of the king of Mide, and with time, of all of Ireland. She presided over his stable and his table and once a year, when the tides ran slow and fast and the seed was sown, he would ride her like a horse and sow his seed in her, and all would be intoxicated by their match. She was endlessly young, with the finest match in the isle, and though there were battles ongoing, she showed no more scars than her parade of flawless kings.

There is nothing left on the hill where she once held court save a series of trenches and rolls, a single tall mound, and a standing stone. Her Lia Fial, which cried when touched by the true king of Ireland, screams no more.

They tell stories about her still. Some they remember who we really was, but more find her with other names. But they’re the same ruthless jealous triumphant women all, Medb and Macha and Morrigan and Fúamnach and Eriú, all alike. All at their heart Tara, high queen of Ireland. (If it was customary that Cities not take part in human affairs, well, Tara ignored that. She was above that. It cost her dearly when the people decided to go another way.)

Where Tara has gone, no one really knows, not even her brothers and sisters. But if the Easter fires were burning, and they were, then perhaps an unfortunate trip was all it took to send her to the grave. She surely belonged there no more, with the Church sombre and serious, with its graveyard where she had once celebrated life and feasts and births.

The truth is that she hasn’t left. She lives in a hole, long forgotten, under the single hawthorne tree on the hill. People visit constantly; people remember; so she holds onto humanity. But not entirely, for that time has passed. They worship her, in a weaker way, asking for favours in health, calling her a fairy. It is a mockery of what she used to be. She never grants their wishes. She doesn’t even know if she could. They abandoned her, and she abandons them in turn. She was once the greatest and now she is but a tourist destination; sometimes a rallying point. She does not take well to being so sidelined, her lands carved through for motorways. Once she was benevolent; now she is vindictive. She wants her power back. She has survived purely for want of it.

They should be afraid of Tara. She is angry.


End file.
